South by Southwest 2012: Jack White, Arcade Fire and Nigel Godrich

AUSTIN, Tx. — As the old adage goes, patience is a virtue. But sometimes, having good friends trumps virtuosity.

The annual Spin @ Stubbs party is the go-to Friday day event and the lineup usually matches the hype. This year, the newer, bigger magazine scaled back on the big names, using Santigold’s return from the ether as the top billing.

While writing duties forbade a chance at catching the undercard of The Big Pink and most of Best Coast, the headliner more than made up for it in total sensory overload. While testing the venue’s capacity for bass, the Philadelphia singer/rapper brought with her a Max Headroom skullcap-sporting backup band and Gwen Stefani-esque Harajuku girl backup dancers.

All in all a fun set, but nothing to spend more than two paragraphs describing.

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As partygoers set their sights on a variety of the evening’s showcases, this reporter had only one venue in mind: Jack White’s Third Man Records showcase.

Arriving a good five hours before the label boss was due onstage, I was met with a massive badge line. As doors opened, I inched ever closer to the entrance but, with mere 20 people to go, the doors shut and we were informed by a rather chatty security guard that the chances of getting in where slim to none.

Luckily, the venue featured an open window through which 50 or so people could huddle around and listen to opening sets by funnyman and human beatbox Reggie Watts, actor John C. Reilly doing country standards, and the former Mrs. White Karen Ellson. But with the passing 6th Street cacophony making critical listening painfully difficult, as the hour of White’s arrival neared, it was clearly time to take action.

Waving down a friend inside, we devised a plan to sneak through the back door. Five minutes and $5 later, I was standing next to Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde (both looking rather tired) in the patio of the venue.

Heading to the bar, celebs kept on appearing. While I ordered a Lone Star, Bill Murray sauntered up beside me to ask directions to the washroom. Only at SXSW (or L.A., but you get the drift).

Anyway, on to the good stuff. Appearing with a police escort, the former White Stripes frontman delivered a strong set, mixing White Stripes and Dead Weather covers with selections from his countrified new album. Backed by an all-female backing band, Stripes tunes such as Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground were given a full band treatment, with sweeping strings revealing White’s typically hidden pop tendencies.

After a short break, White returned, this time with an all-male band, and continued the greatest hits set, digging deeper into the edgier end of his catalogue, with songs such as Ball and Biscuit given room to breathe with long blues jams. White also sampled from some of his other projects, with both The Raconteurs (Steady as She Goes) and ROME (Two Against One) getting love between the harder new numbers.

Stripped of the pretension that accompanies being in a Jack White band, this new solo Jack White appears to finally be comfortable in his own skin. A welcome sign for things to come.

As White faded back into his yellow roving record store and the celebrities left for sleep (I hope), a rumour began floating around that Arcade Fire were playing Lance Armstrong’s bike shop, Mellow Johnny’s. Those in the know hightailed it out to huge store.

With no line-up, the initial feeling was we’d been duped. But with a helping hand from a certain Arts & Crafts head-honcho, we were soon inside what ended up being Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich’s Third Man Records afterparty.

And as for those Arcade Fire rumours, they were half-true. Turns out the band was set to DJ and, when we finally made out way in, we found Win Butler and Richard Parry manning an iPod.

Unsurprisingly, the duo pulled out a string of quality tunes under the watchful gaze of Armstrong’s Tour de France yellow jerseys, revelers, including Reilly, Butler’s wife and co-bandleader Regine Chassagne, and bearded Canadian actor Scott Speedman, many of whom schmoozed and boozed till 4 a.m.